A Study in Silver and Gold
by SapSorrow
Summary: Flashback to a happier time, told in retrospect by our favourite duo, with much scene setting and vague hints of plot. Thorki, M rated for graphic sexual content, mostly in the last chapter.
1. Loki

**A Study in Silver and Gold**

1.

So tell me –

Tell me if you remember a day so warm it seemed the birds stopped singing for laziness; when the sunlight poured into the courtyard, bearing with it the call and scent of forest and sea, mountain and lake. All the coolest corners of the realm begged to be explored that day, to be taken.

Hear the sound of hooves in the yards, as from all the palatial quarters of Asgard people rode out to adventure in the sweetness of that air and warmth. Smell the breeze and beg to be carried away on it once more, as we were carried then.

We were so young then, barely bordering on adulthood. Sometimes in those days we still forgot and laughed like children at things nobody else heard or were even there to begin with. I would still come to you in the night with the terror I could not understand; when my vaulted rooms and the huge pillars of home seemed inexplicably alien to me and you were the only thing that seemed to make sense. I remember how you would hide beneath heavy sheets with me and beg illusions from my finger tips to light and warm our little cave. My enchantments would light in your eyes like reflections on the sea and you laughed and pushed me when I wouldn't let you touch them as I twinkled them out into a new warm darkness in which I was no longer scared.

You said I looked like a spirit myself in that dark soft world of ours and you looked at me with such honest wonderment that I almost felt like I might be a good one.

I wonder if you knew how _you _looked that morning; sunlight so suited you as the moon light suited me. You _shone _on your horse, riding out that day – the golden prince of Asgard. I was not even jealous then – not much, content just to bask in that light. Given the number of faces that turned towards you like sunflowers I wonder if you even noticed mine. Given later events I can only imagine that actually – you did. As it was you attention _was _all upon me, even if it was just to yell merrily –

"Loki!" – you rode up to me, Svaoilfari in something of a skittish mood – "Loki swap with me? Svaoilfari's not right with me today."

I daresay I raise my eyebrows and edged away on Gyllir –

"Not a chance!" I replied – "That stallion's been making eyes at me ever since – well –" I'd like to say I didn't blush but I'm sure I did. At any rate I was convinced that that horse still wanted a piece of me. You just rolled your eyes at me and bellowed across the courtyard at Volstagg instead –

"Volstagg! Swap horses? Loki's being an obstreperous ass!"

I whistled gently through my teeth as you and Volstagg genially affected the horse exchange.

"My my brother – you've been reading _books _again haven't you?"

You looked at me tolerantly –

"Contrary to common opinion Loki I am not an _entirely _witless idiot."

"Oh don't worry – " I countered – "It's not _common _opinion – it's just mine."

You sighed –

"Of all the people with whom I could spend a day like today –"

"Oh should I be touched? I do apologise –"

"Shut up Loki" you sighed, yet still genially turned down the several requests thrown out from others to join them on their ventures. I confess I experienced a twinge of self doubt at that and, looking down, I muttered –

"You can go with them if you want"

"Loki –" you growled affectionately, frowning at me – "Shut up!" – you patted me on the shoulder in a manner I think you meant as brotherly but which took in that stroke at the back of the neck that you always gave me to comfort, knowing that I positively purred when you touched that spot. I do not know if you knew you were also stroking my hair a little – but yes, you were.

I looked back up, reassured so easily in those days and you grinned to see me smile.

"Besides you shrugged with casual arrogance – "Who else could I so easily beat to that line of trees?" You gestured out the front gate and I accepted the challenge easily –

"You are _on!"_

Remember how we did not need to count or speak, but you looked at me with a smile that I reflected back at you and we moved as one, galloping out and into the fields in a great shared rush of motion. Remember the feel of wind in the hair, deliciously cool on the skin in the heat and the way the blood stirred to ride out thus, together. Remember the sound and the fury of hooves on the earth and the pounding that framed the world in those moments.

And did you turn to me as I passed you, smiling brightly with the wind in your hair? Did you laugh at the share joy of living in a second such as this and did I share in your smiles, your delight? Or is it just nostalgia painting these details in? Even if it is would that make it any less real? Sometimes the things we imagine are at least as important, as powerful as the facts.

Hard to believe now that that was me, pulling hard to a halt beside those first trees, laughing as you came in not far behind.

"You were saying something?"

"Was I?" You feigned ignorance, and partially you feigned you irritation – enjoying the fact that there were things at which I could actually beat you – when there was nobody else who even posed much of a challenge, though you were still almost as sore a loser as I could be.

"Oh and you know it! And look – I _did _beat you!"

"Well –" you grimaced, ungraciously – "But only because I let you."

I shook my head, laughing at you silently – yet visibly I am sure –

"You are such a _liar _brother!"

"They do say it takes one to know –"

I pushed you, rocking you in the saddle ad obviously you pushed back. Ever the brute _your _push took me right off my horse. I thank mother for the trickery that made it look as though I landed on my feet. You laughed;

"Right!" I said, half annoyed, half – I admit – amused – "Come down here and fight me like a man!"

You gave me that tolerant, teasing _oh little brother _face.

"Well –" you shrugged – I suppose somebody has to show you how!"

"You take that back!" I returned, surreptitiously magically unfastening everything that held your tack in place.

"How can I take it back?" You positively beamed, so proud at the quickness of you frankly sub – par retort – "It was a gift!" – and with a hard tug at your stirrup I pulled you right off the horse, saddle and all. _You _did not make it look graceful.

"Loki!" You growled from a prostrate pose – "That is _not _how men fight!"

"You you're right –" I said slowly – "Apparently it's how they fall on their –"

_That _got you back up on your feet quickly and swinging a clumsy punch at me. I dodged of course, and cackled when you hit a tree instead, skipping aside repeatedly as you came at me –

"Damn you Loki!" you growled – "I thought you said fight like a man – you evade like a little girl!" I confess I did evade further – I always did like to goad you so as to see how imaginative your insults could get.

"The Lady Sif is more of a man than you are!" Not very, evidently.

"The Lady Sif is more of a man than _you _are!" I retorted, although giving that Lady's abilities it was a poor insult – "Anyway you'd know of course –"

You growled again at that and caught me by the collar. I flashed a grin at you –

"Turn you down did she? Well I can't say I blame her –"

You could always beat me easily enough in a wrestle, though this never did stop you delighting in taking me down. Men don't like to admit much how intimate fighting can be – how close; the tension, the friction and the shared space that is the sweetest we can generally speak of. But then I have always been one for saying more than I probably should. Beatable though I was I was still the only person who could hold against your strength for more than a few seconds, and you crushed my shoulders in a grip that would have broken another man's bones. I kicked you in the ankle and you grappled me down , I locked my hands around your neck to drag you with me and you pinned me by the shoulders , pushing me into the ground. Scent of grass and earth and you – leather, rain and sunlight – warm, too damn warm in this heat and your hair tickling my fingers, an inexplicable look in your eyes and me wondering if this would ever go the way it did in my dreams – strange, recent dreams and some of the only ones I thought that I would never share with you.

You were still looking at me so strangely, frowning as though there was something you could not work out – for once I could not read your expression at all, so confused it seemed. Your eyes were dark to the point of black – but then that could have signified many things. There was an awkwardness, suddenly, stronger than there had ever been between us before. I punched you feebly in the shoulder, trying to dispel it; you looked positively dazed –

"Well – let me up already – what are you going to do – kiss me?"

It was a joke, of course, but you let go of me like wildfire, wincing like you were touching coals. You even stumbled a little standing up and for a moment I could almost have seen lightning bolts in your eyes. Whatever it was – and I had half a hunch – you shook it off like a dog shakes water and reached out a rough hand to pull me to my feet. Your palm was warm and your hand lingered a little too long in mine. We broke apart awkwardly and I could feel static, coiled like a burst of magical potential in my palm.

"You have grass on you" you said, to break the awkwardness.

"You put it there" I shot back quickly. You started brushing me off like I was a dishevelled horse until I became impatient and shied away –

"Alright alright – if you wanted to touch me you could have just asked." I don't know why I can't stop myself speaking, I really don't. Just for a moment you gave me that face – _why are you making this worse? _But not for long because you knew me better than to ever ask me something like that.

You snorted and harrumphed at me as you got back onto your horse and by the time we set off again we were back to halfway normal; where the sun was warm and the blue skies overhead were reflected in your eyes. Perhaps you congratulated yourself on a near miss as we rode side by side into the trees; though if you did it was not to be for long. Certainly I cannot forget how you were to me then, golden amongst the green; everything I wanted and everything I wanted to be.

Was it what later transpired that fixed that day so clearly in my mind? Certainly everything to follow only served to carve you, deep and shining, into my being until you became indistinguishable to me from the air itself; warm, alive – and painfully necessary.

_x_

**So, this was gonna be just a one shot (and I wasn't even gonna write it until I'd written some other things!) – but the one shot was going to be what happens in the next chapter so clearly it's already taken on a life of it's own! It could become quite long. **

**Feedback always appreciated – especially here as I'm not at all comfortable writing in first person only I wrote half of it in second and it didn't work, Loki was yelling at me to narrate it himself so I had to re-do the whole thing. Hope it works! Next chapter coming soon!**


	2. Thor

**In which we switch to Thor's perspective. **

2.

You ask if I remember, and of course it wounds me that you could ask. I could no more forget than I could shut you out of my head altogether – and believe me, I have tried that hard enough now to know it to be impossible. Yes I remember; I remember every flavour, every note of that day – like it was a dish to be savoured or a song to sing over and over again in the head. Above all I remember you – I remember you from back then and cannot begin to say what this does to the heart. I remember you saying that the warmth and sunlight did nothing for you, that you only came outside because I dragged you – you would far rather sit in the shade and read. You said you wilted in sunlight where I blossomed. I remember – and it hurts now – how sweet your lies were back then.

And yes, I remember falling into that inexplicable urge to kiss you, as though we were characters in a story and I simply _could. _I remember how I could feel your heart beat and your fingers on my neck – so close to giving in to that strange urge that it hurt to tear away. I thought we were safe and then – brushing grass from your back – I became aware of you as I had never quite been before – not suddenly so close and achievable. I had to back away fast, afraid you could hear through my touch what I was not even quite thinking. I got back on to my horse, relieved, yes; again I thought we were safe.

I remember the dance of light and leaf as shadows across your face as we rode by mutual agreement to the waterfall. So many times we had come here over the years, the pool being the perfect place on days like today. The sunlight threw rainbows across the water and the blue teemed with shimmering light, but you must know by now that I had eyes for little but you. I think I might have died if you had any idea how you captivated me then – how your every movement seemed as a dance to me. You got off your horse like a leaf falling from a tree and your smile was starlight to me. Whatever you meant by them, your smiles have always been the stars by which I set my compass.

Did I worry about the impropriety of my thoughts? Did I congratulate myself on every near miss? Yes, often and of course I did. Did I do you any lasting damage by not always loving you simply as my brother or was the damage caused by my pretence that such was "all" it was? I do not know, nor know if I wish to hear the answers to that.

I was not so conscious though, even then, that I could not join you in shedding our clothes and running for the water. It was a natural path for us – up the hill and to an overhanging rock from which to execute the perfect dive. You were faster than me and by far more elegant; over the rock and into the pool as though you were a shimmering stream yourself. By the time I followed, you had already resurfaced and gained breath enough to berate me for nearly landing on top of you. You called me a clumsy oaf or some such typical insult –

"Do you _never _look where you're going?"

"Do you _ever _get out of my way?" I retorted. You splashed me and I splashed back and we kicked up a small storm of water at each other, making noise enough to fill the clearing as we had done since we were boys. If I go back there now I can still hear us roar.

I endeavoured to drown you a little and you turned into a little silver fish and swam between my legs, tickling me. I think that form suited you well – a darting streak of silver in the water, impossible to catch or hold down. I laughed because you tickled and then nibbled at me –

"Loki!" I laughed, breathless – "No no no – not my toes – no Loki you have fish lips!"

You surfaced next to me, yourself again, grinning and spitting water at me. I shook my head and you floated away, whimsically flipping onto your back. Not for the first time I wished I knew what you were thinking. But I did the same, lying cradled in the cool water, squinting up at the sun. The sky was so close and so near to the water that it felt rather like flying. I could have floated forever, so content I did not even notice for a while that you had slipped your hand into mine in a state of suspended perfection. When I finally turned to you, frowning gently, you flashed me a sparkling smile –

"Bye!" you said, turned yourself into an otter and dived away under the water. I had the distinct impression that you were laughing to your suddenly furry self.

You resurfaced and scampered out of the water and on to a large flat rock by the river, where you turned back into you again and lay unashamedly naked in the sunlight. There was nothing new in this; we had done this more times than I could count, but today was different – I would say like being under a spell, but it would perhaps be truer to say that it was the day that the spell broke, the day I stopped lying to myself – at least quite so badly. If there was one point – if it could have been that simple – one point at which I fell in love with you, then that was it.

I was thankful you were gazing up at the sky dreamily, that you did not see me blink, swallow and double take to look at you then, immensely grateful for the river's hiding the most visible aspect of my reaction.

Do you have _any _idea – any idea at all of how beautiful you were to me then? It was as if I had never seen you before. And perhaps I had not. We had grown up together, you had been in my heart since before I can remember – I would no more have thought of desiring you as I would have myself- until recently, because on the other hand this did not come as completely unexpected -certainly not as much as I might have liked. You had been creeping into the warmer corners more and more of late and there was a strange kind of static in your touch that I had been telling myself firmly I could not understand. Because you were at once so close to me and so different that I could not help but be fascinated - almost as though (ha!) you were a different species from me.

If you could see what I saw then, I am sure even you would see your beauty. You dazzled in the sunlight like a mythical creature laid out on the rock. Sunlight caught in the water still shining on your skin and you shimmered in the light like something incorporeal. A curious, radiant thing that I did not feel I deserved to touch as I found I painfully wanted to; almost afraid I would break you if I did. I confess I was arrested, unmade as I had never been by anyone. I looked too long and too close to ever forget; how your hair was like oil on your shoulders and your lips rested in a half smile of wry amusement. You were a rare silvery ideal and I, clumsy and awkward by comparison, wanted only to touch, to feel, to claim; to say that something so precious was mine in any way.

I was so lost in the thought of you I did not at first see that you had turned to look straight at me. Your eyes, quick and piercing, seemed to laugh at me, opening me up irreverently to read every secret in my heart. I looked away – too fast I am sure – as your lips curved into a smile that made me wonder exactly how much you had read of the obvious story written in my eyes. Anyway you were not going to let me know that easily, of course. You propped yourself up on your elbows with languid arrogant grace –

"Are you _ever _coming out of there?" you called – "Or are you staying in there all day?"

Your voice startled me some way out of my rather alarming reverie, but I found myself unsure how to reply or whether or not it was safe to come out of the water in my present condition.

"I do not see that it is any business of yours!" I called. You smirked as though you knew exactly what my problem was and were just waiting to see what I would do. Luckily the water was very cold and after a few minutes of looking away I was able to come out without further embarrassment.

_x_

**Next section Loki will be taking over the narrative again and it will go in more graphic directions! Coming soon!**


	3. Loki 2

**Loki again!**

**3.**

There was a part of me that knew, it was true, and that part was surely playing with you as a cat with a mouse; both testing to see what you would do with your newly awakening knowledge and partly – perversely – to make you feel worse about something that – were I correct in my assumptions – would already have set all of the righteous moral cogs of your brain into uproar.

But there was another part – and it was the stronger – that wondered why anyone, least of all you, would ever want something like me. You were to me like something broken off from the sunlight and into this beautiful place. It never ceased to amaze me, actually, that I was in a position where I could mock and annoy rather than simply worship you. Did you have any idea that I did? Did I really know it? Either way, I could, would and did not give you any sign of it.

But this story is not about me. It's about you. And I was not so stupid that I could not see what was happening here. What had been happening, in fact, for months now. How oddly I sometimes caught you looking at me. How you kept opening your mouth to say something, then deciding against it. How you no longer simply hugged me when I still crept into your bed at night to hide from the dark where you could protect me; but I could feel you getting hard against me in your half sleep and you would wake up, awkward to find me still curled up against you as I had done for as long as I can remember. For a long time now we had taken to spending quiet hours reading by the fire, you sat on the floor and me sprawled with my head in your lap, the better to maximise on the crackling warmth of the flame. Recently you had taken to stroking my hair, absently petting me like a cat. I would lie still, fighting to put down the inclination to stretch and purr, shivering at the delicious sparks you set skittering across my skin, _dying _quietly when you casually, carelessly stroked the edge of an ear or the back of my neck, wondering if you even really knew that you were doing it and afraid that if I showed any sign of awareness or appreciation you would stop.

I remember you then, coming out of the river as though the sun and water had joined that day to birth a new god. You were to me a shining thing, something set far above the common crowd, your hair like pale fire and your skin so golden and perfect I felt if I could even touch you I would burn to dust and ashes. But I would burn content. I felt that I could just be content forever if for one moment someone could look at me and feel half of what I felt then. I wonder now where that belief in contentment went – and I miss it. Inwardly I shrank, comparing myself to you; outwardly I gazed up at the sky, merely smirking faintly when you came and sat beside me.

You sat, close enough to touch, leaning your palms back on the rock, tilting your face into a small rippling breeze. Your eyes closed and you took a deep breath out. I could have _been _you then, watching you so closely I could feel everything you felt; warm sun, sweet breeze, cool stone and the burning heart wild in your chest. Only your eyes gave away the troubled tone of those heart beats, a darker cast of blue than usual, colour of twilight in spring. You turned to me frowning and I flicked my gaze away as though all I had been giving you was a cursory glance. To add to my perfect pretence I then glanced straight back at you, to treat _you _like the one who was being strange.

"Oh dear –" I drawled (so coolly! – I was proud) "You look like you're _thinking _brother, you really should stop, we all know how bad that is for you."

It was always comfortable to insult your intelligence, especially since I was one of the few people who knew how intelligent you could actually be at times.

"Loki hush," you sighed – "On a day like today can you not put that wretched tongue of yours to better use?" You coloured up _beautifully _at your own words and I could not stop myself, I could _never _stop myself –

"Can you think of one for it?"

I did it again; you looked away from me fast, positively angrily, clenching your hand and grinding your fist against the rock, visibly wrestling violently with yourself.

"Do not –"you mumbled.

"Do not _what?" _I affected a laziness of tone I did not feel, afraid you could hear my traitorous heart beat accelerate in fear and hope – "You're being really _weird _today Thor- _and _you keep looking at me funny – why?"

"Weird?" You were simply _terrible _at affecting nonchalance. You sounded like a choked up mess.

"Yes you, weird; what is it – why do you keep staring at me?"

"Why would _you _stare at something?" You tried to put this back to me. I did not take it.

"To scare it," I said promptly – "Do _you _expect to scare_ me _brother?" You shook your head with a sigh.

"Well what then?" I pressed.

"Loki – please –"

"No no, don't you "Loki" me! Do you even know how often you do that?"

"Well – it's your name, idiot."

" – and you do love to say it." I muttered, only just not quite under my breath.

You scowled, but managed not to rise to the bait for once.

"Can you never just drop it Lo – brother?"

"Hmm" I made a mock thoughtful face – "Does that _sound _like something I would do?"

You made a growling sound of frustration and cursed under your breath.

"It does not," you muttered, then sighed and continued quite exasperated – "Loki, _you _may only ever have devious intentions but it is more than likely that if _I _look long enough at something it is likely because the thing is beautiful to me –"

You stopped abruptly, your face a picture of _I just said that out loud. _I must have frowned, finally sitting up to look at you with no little degree of confusion. You looked at me, awkward and terribly afraid, I could almost hear your heart race.

"If you laugh at me brother, I swear I will beat the living –"

"Yes yes, I get the general theme." I waved it away. "So you _are _saying what I think you're saying."

"Loki –" you groaned – "_Must _I tell you – just how you appear to me?" Your voice dropped, so hushed it was like treading on leaves in a forest, hiding from a predator.

"Yes," I replied, matching your tone; we were on a precipice now, shaking in the wind of it, the water churning far below us and it could either kill us or carry us on its current depending on how this moment went – "If you wish me to believe it."

"Believe –" you began, reaching out a hand to me then and suddenly frowning – "Can I – touch you?"

You were so unsure, so tentative; my heart never came quite so close to melting as it did then. Still, all I said was;

"You did not think to ask that two minutes ago when you were threatening to beat me up?"

Thankfully you must have heard the assent in my irreverent voice, because you reached to touch my face, your fingers just a whisper on my skin at first, gentle as the breeze. So surprised at you nearly unthinkable gentility I almost cried out – as it was I know I opened my mouth in a silent involuntary O of breathy surprise. Your tenderness made me want to cry, running such reverent fingers down my neck and over my collar bone –

"Believe you _are _beautiful, brother," you whispered, and I believed it because your eyes were trembling, your fingers shaking against my shoulder, your words an incantation of near worship and I knew then that you _did _feel at least half of what I did and for that moment I was indeed content – and for that day I stayed that way.

"Beautiful like snow in summer," you went on – "Believe I love you, brother, believe you are more precious to me than I can say. Believe – so much more than I have wit to say and believe my want – even though I do not quite know – what it is I am wanting."

I smiled then and could not hide it; your words came out so badly, each one a gift but the order somewhat lacking. You traced the edge of my smile with a finger like a feather and your eyes told me you had just lost in a terrible fight –

"Can I –" you swallowed hard and I almost hurt to see it. We had fought side by side. I had seen you knowing your life was in danger. I had tolerated your deepest and most foolish concerns, but I had never seen you as scared and unsure as you were now and it killed me to be the cause –

"Can I – kiss you?"

It was not as though you had never kissed me before – usually on the forehead to chase away my nightmares – but it was extremely clear that was not what you meant. Not even the part of me that denied everything the hardest could have said no to you. With those words, when I leaned into you in consent, I fell from that precipice. I fell hard and I was not scared. It was good to fall then, good to know that you would always be there to catch me. Always.

_x_

**I kind of lied – it didn't get so graphic! – next chapter though for sure because that will be the last! But fear not – I already have a sequel planned! J**


	4. Duet

**Last chapter, this one from alternating perspectives, Thor's in italics.**

**4.**

There is an ideal of the first kiss that is a million miles away from the usual truth of it. I had no such ideal and only learned of it since then. What I learned was that _this _was the ideal others only dreamed of; a softness and a sweetness that coming from you seemed to come out of nowhere; the bizarre unlikelihood that a simple meeting of lips could shock the body in continual waves of delight and embrace the brain, even _my _brain, teasing some of the blackness out of my head and filling the spaces with this blissful peace that lasted for as long as your touch. I could never have told you then, nor for centuries to follow that you even _were _my first, indeed that in spite of all the lies I gave you later to the contrary – my only. For in truth after that the thought of so much as touching anyone else sickened me through and through. And are these the greatest truths I would never tell you? – certainly the most frightening words I never said. My first, only, always, last. Everything.

_Everything, I thought, and it was as sure, as certain, as plain as day – you would and always would be that to me. Yes, I was afraid you would say no when I gave up the fight and asked to kiss you. But this too I was afraid of; the truth that there would be no going back from here. That I was making you promises I never said aloud that day – vows to you that I would keep no matter what came at us, no matter how hard you later tried to make me break them. My fingers shook on your skin, softer than snow and cooling the burning inside of me as the river cooled my skin. Like touching stardust, twisting my hands into your hair, to pull back and kiss you deeper when the first breathless, gasping exploration was over. Driven by this lust, this excruciating _need _that had been building in me steadily and relentlessly for- I must confess – years now, I broke through tender in feverish intensity until my whole being shook with the frantic rise and fall of my chest. I was shivering in the sun when we pulled apart for air by unspoken mutual consent, curling my hand around your neck, pressing your forehead to mine, panting. You were actually warm for once and I must have been dripping sweat –_

- afraid to look one another in the eye at first; when you did look at me I trembled beneath the lightening crackling in your eyes; I could see my own eyes reflected there, their ever changing colour now black as night. You clenched your teeth –

"Brother –" you began, jerking your head a little involuntarily as the word sunk in.

"No –" I broke in quickly, almost snarling, not in denial but to stop you from saying what I knew would come next – "Tell me this is wrong and you may as well kill me now –"

You shook your head, partly at my flair for the melodramatic I am sure –

"It does not feel wrong" you said.

"Go with it" I murmured close to your mouth, and you needed no further telling to kiss me again, un–make me again.

"I think –" you groaned – "I am falling –"

"And I –" I nodded – "Falling harder."

"You have to always go one better, don't you?" you growled, nails gently, firmly, digging scratches into my neck until I could have screamed. Instead I shrugged

"Of course I do."

_I laughed; there was no way or reason in the world not to love you. Certainly no way that I could not. You arched towards me as I ran my hands up your back, breathless from the feel of you, wondering that you could be so deliciously soft and yet powerfully hard and firm at the same time, your flesh rippling beneath my hands like my horse in motion beneath me. Your eyes closed and your head rolled back, your hands falling almost shyly to my chest as the most exquisite whimpers escaped your half parted lips. I knew then that the only thing that would be truly wrong would be not to kiss those lips. I pulled you close to devour anew, awkwardly and wretchedly needy and when you squirmed against me, raising yourself up, I could feel my erection harder than it had ever been in my life._

_I felt ashamed at my uncertainty, aware that you too could feel this, virginally uncertain of what to do next. You made me feel like there had never been anyone else ever – well perhaps, when it came down to it there had not been. All I knew was that I _wanted _painfully and that only you could help me. You shifted against me, hands sliding up and around the back of my neck, rocking purposefully against my hardness and looking down with a glint in your eye and a smile playing across your face._

_"Loki – please –" I groaned, helplessly, rocking back against you to press my aching cock against your soft skin – "Please – I don't know –" You cut me off with a silent '_shhh', _your finger on my lips and a gentle eye roll –_

_"_I _do" you murmured, words dropping like honey from your lips. I was yours then so completely, your arm dropping between our bodies to take me in your hand. I nearly came instantly, that first caress of your wickedly gentle fingers against my burning, throbbing need something I will never forget. I only understood then how long and how badly I had needed this – needed _you. _I could not tear my gaze from you, the transcendent look on your face, placing you high amongst the stars in my estimation, your hand closing around my aching cock, satisfying the deepest hunger I had ever known. I did not last long , my entire existence swirling down into my cock in your hand at this time and place, breaking me apart and I came that whole existence into your hand, shuddering and screaming so hard my screams came out silent and I fell back against the rock, half certain I would faint. I did not. Instead I peered up to see you looking quizzically at your hand and sucking the evidence from your fingers in a way that made my only just softening cock twitch back to life already. I closed my eyes, just then starting to learn how painful and remorseless desire could be. _

_"Loki –"_

- you said, your eyes beseeching and I lay back down beside you, burrowing into the crook of your arm and nestling against you. You stroked my hair and I basked in my own greatness, it is true – I had let you think I knew _exactly _what I was doing when in truth I had had no idea. If this means we began with a lie then at least it was a good one – but more a happy accident with which nobody could complain. I rested my head on your chest and breathed in your galloping heartbeat, practically purring as you stroked me.

"You feel –" you murmured in faint surprise, "-_Warm. _Warm like feathers in the snow."

"Brother –" I chided, not meaning a word I was saying and you knew it – "Don't go soft on me."

"Damn –" you said, clutching me closer a little too tightly.

"Damn?"

"I did not think –" you broke off, realising it sounded bad – "I did not think I would still want you like this –"

It hurt a bit, I stiffened, I could feel my own eyes narrowing –

"You thought you could just get me out of your system and get back on with your life?"

You winced at my tone but were honest to a despicable fault –

"Yes," you started. I jerked away from you angrily, rapidly, preparing myself for heartbreak, ready and expecting; _too _ready, I know. You wouldn't let me- "…but I can't," you finished quickly, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down – "I can't, Loki; I was a fool, I know that now – I can't go back and –" you frowned, working it out as you said it – "and that's fine." I must have softened back against you and you kissed my forehead – "This is better," you concluded.

You held me tight and I clung to you and we lay together, happy and terrified all at once. Happy to be coming together as we should be and we knew it but terrified to _feel _so powerfully.

After a few minutes you rolled on to your side and I propped myself on an elbow to face you. We were not afraid, like I thought we might be – nor embarrassed or awkward anymore – to be thus, face to face, smiling into each other as we always had – in secrets we shared that the rest of creation would never know. Well, _I _was thinking deep thoughts anyway;

"Loki?" you said eventually.

"Yes?"

"Can I –" you frowned a little. "Can I do that to you?" I am sure I must have grinned widely, ear to ear.

"Dear gods –" I groaned in relief and delight, "-I was afraid you'd never ask." I was, after all, far too happy with what we had already achieved to risk damaging it by pointing out that I was still hard as Hel.

Forehead to forehead, your hand on my hip, the hiss of breath you took at the softness of my skin, myself gasping in an epiphany of surprise when you brushed a spot beneath the hip that sent great shudders all through me, how it was you who groaned to take my cock in your hand but I who clutched your shoulder in a vice moments later, my other hand scrambling at the rock for something to cling to as I broke against you crying like circling bird song , a wave crashing against the shore of you. It was like flying and you the only thing that would keep me from floating completely away.

We were perfect and I was worshipped and I wanted to be so forever. Then and there I set my sights too high for the rest of my life.

_I could hardly believe how _right _it felt. How right _I _felt. I had assumed myself to be perfect before this, it was true, but I knew then that it was only ever because you were so nearly always by my side. There was no awkwardness here and no innocence was truly lost that day. Instead we did this again and again throughout the afternoon and in between talked nonsense and traded insults. Later we returned to the river, in urgent need of washing off – no different, indeed changed only for the better – than we had been when we entered the water earlier that day. _

_I held your hand as we rode slowly back, side by side, until the spires of home became too close to allow it. Neither of us dared ask the other what happened now and that afternoon it did not matter. The days to come would deepen and later complicate what had started today, days we could colour in shades of red, yellow, orange, green. Later, much later, would come days of grey and blue and the days you would try to paint black. But nothing to follow could damage the hue of that one perfect day; a study in silver and gold. _

__x__

**This story kind of became something different from what was originally planned, so I apologise to the people who were expecting more porn but there are so many awesome fics about these two having amazing angry sex and I kind of thought I wanted to look at a different time, before it all went wrong. However there will be sequels – possibly a couple of them to follow that will go straight on from this and get much more graphic, but they will now be sequels and not part of this story which feels finished as it is. I just want to leave it there, all shining and happy like! :-) **

**Having said that watch this space for "A study in Crimson and Green" coming rather soon! **


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